June 17, 2024
I took the EX358 exam a few years back and therefore it recently expired.
Since the exam is still available, I decided to take it again to renew my Red Hat Certified Specialist in Services Management and Automation certification and, therefore, extend my Red Hat Certified Architect certification.
This time around, I had the impression that the exam had changed quite a bit from the last time I took it.
While the previous time the exam reminded me mostly of an Ansible certification, this time it reminded me way more of the old RHCE exam (the EX300).
The bulk of the exam was about configuring the various services, while in the previous version, there was a lot more focus on the Ansible part, which is more like the EX294.
It is also true that EX300 was phasing out at the time, but it was still an exam many people had, while EX294 was fairly new.
However, as I suggested the previous time, it is still crucial to be able to perform all configurations manually and with Ansible because you can not know what you will be tasked to perform manually and what you will be tasked to perform using Ansible.
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October 4, 2023
As it happens every couple of years, my Google Cloud Certifications were up for renewal at the end of August.
I started to look for possible exam dates at the beginning of June since it is possible to renew Google Cloud exams only from the 60th day before the expiration to the 30th day after the expiration date.
Since the system informed me that I was outside the 60-day window, I assumed I had to wait until 60 days before the expiration to book the exam.
So I waited.
The day arrived and passed, and still, I was not able to book my exams.
After a few tickets opened to both Google and Kryterion, they informed me that they unblocked my Google Professional Cloud Architect exam, while for the Google Associate Cloud Engineer, more time to unblock it was needed.
I, therefore, took the Google Professional Cloud Architect exam.
Once that one was renewed, I noticed that Google silently and retroactively increased the validity of Google Associate Cloud Engineer certifications from 2 to 3 years, so I will be able to renew that one next year.
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August 31, 2023
A few weeks ago, I passed the Red Hat EX467 exam, which allowed me to become Red Hat Certified Specialist in Managing Automation with Ansible Automation Platform.
As of today, this is the newest Red Hat exam on Ansible.
You can notice this from the version of Ansible Automated Platform that this exam uses: 2.2.
An aspect that is already clear by looking at the objective is that this exam is completely complementary to the EX294 exam.
In fact, the EX294 focuses on how to write Ansible code.
In contrast, the EX467 focuses on leveraging the Ansible Automation Platform to ensure that Ansible automation can be effectively used in enterprise environments.
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February 27, 2023
Last week, I completed the Red Hat EX188 exam, which allowed me to become Red Hat Certified Specialist in Containers.
I think that Red Hat has been able to improve the quality of its exams over time.
Newer exams tend to have better explanations of the required tasks.
It could also be that this feeling is partially due to my increasing familiarity with those kinds of exercises.
This exam is very new; in fact, I believe it was released at the beginning of the year, and this is by far the more user-friendly Red Hat exam I’ve ever done.
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November 16, 2022
Yesterday I did the Red Hat EX374 exam, which allows becoming Red Hat Certified Specialist in Developing Automation with Ansible Automation Platform.
This exam is my sixth Ansible exam/certification, so the question is always, how is this similar or different from the others?
This exam is one of the furthest ones from the others since it focuses on Ansible Automation Platform 2 instead of Ansible Core or Ansible Tower.
This change was welcomed since AAP has many more moving parts and features compared to previous products.
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October 30, 2022
Three years passed from the last AWS exam I took, and my AWS certifications were due a renewal.
The first thing I checked was what was the exam code and which one I had taken three years ago.
It turns out that the last time I took SAA-C01, this time, the only available version for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam was SAA-C03.
SAA-C03 is still very new since it got released last month, so not much third-party material is available.
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March 31, 2022
On Friday, I had the opportunity to take scrum.org’s Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) and Professional Scrum Product Owner I (PSPO I) exams.
I’ve started to prepare myself with a training course mainly focused on PSM I.
Even though the training title was around PSM I, the course has been on the ideas and reasons behind scrum more than specifically on the certification.
I’ve then proceeded with a full read of the scrum guide.
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September 20, 2021
After having renewed the Google Associate Cloud Engineer certification, it was the moment to renew the Google Professional Cloud Architect certification as well.
Since I wanted to keep Windows on my laptop for the smallest amount of time possible, I decided to book the Professional Cloud Architect exam the day after the Associate Cloud Engineer one.
On the exam day (18th of August), having had experience the previous day, I ensured to set up everything correctly.
As I did the previous day, I decided to use my Lenovo Bluetooth Laser Mouse.
The exam started without any hiccups at 15:00.
At around 15:30, I moved the mouse wheel to the left, triggering a “back” signal, equivalent to press the “back” button in a browser.
Kryterion Sentinel decided that the proper way to handle such a signal was to interrupt the exam.
I tried to call the Kriterion call centers, but a recorded voice informed me that the fastest way to access their customer care was via chat.
I opened a chat with their support and got put in a queue of about 20 people.
After 40 minutes, I managed to chat with a support representative, and they managed to schedule a new exam session for me a couple of minutes later (16:15).
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August 25, 2021
A couple of years ago, I obtained the Google Associate Cloud Engineer certification, so it was re-certification time.
Since it is August and probably also due to the whole ongoing health situation, I’ve not found any test center at a reasonable distance.
Therefore, I’ve decided to use the Online Proctored option.
Google relies on Kryterion for their exams, as many other companies do, since Kryterion has more than 1100 associated test centers and, at least in the ICT certification space, it’s one of the most commonly used networks.
Having had experience with Red Hat remote certifications, I was expecting at least the same level of user experience with Kryterion.
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March 31, 2021
Late last year, I’ve read that a new Ansible-related exam was available: the Red Hat Certified Specialist in Services Management and Automation exam (EX358).
I’ve taken and passed this exam at the end of January.
It was the first time I did a Red Hat exam that was brand new and without having the possibility of finding online some opinions around it.
Some people have reported for other exams that when new exams are launched, the scoring has issues.
I’ve not noticed such an issue with this exam, so I was pleased about it.
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(Fabio Alessandro Locati|Fale)'s blog